A Star Wars Rewrite - The Third Lesson
by Bad0Wolf
Summary: "I saw darkness," said Luke to Rey about Kylo Ren. But what if Ben Solo hadn't betrayed Luke, but the Master still failed the Apprentice? What if history had repeated itself but in a different fashion? A story about the feeling of responsability that haunts Luke, the tragedies that birthed Kylo Ren, a young scavenger's hunt for meaning, and a third lesson about Jedi legacy.
1. A Feeling of Responsibility

**Author's Note: Here it is: the first of my planned rewrites. Technically, this is a part of my wider Rewrite of The Force Awakens, but an idea came to me for how I would have rewritten a part of The Last Jedi and I just couldn't sit on it. I hope I'll be able to finish it: it's, as you might have guessed, a story about the third lesson we never saw in the film and about a different backstory for Luke's exile and Kylo Ren's fall to the dark side. This chapter, part of my Force Awakens rewrite, is merely designed to set up that backstory. Enjoy ^^.**

 **The Feeling of Responsibility**

 _ **The**_ **Millennium Falcon,  
** _ **Hyperspace,  
34 ABY**_

The map unfolded from the little droid's photoreceptor, the holographic projection englobing the _Millennium Falcon_ 's stateroom. But the beautiful image was not perfect; worlds were distorted or missing names, others overlapped one another, and coordinates for hyperlanes were jumbled and often unreadable. Some systems were easily recognizable, but most were completely unknown, whether by name, by location or even by its key characteristics.

Han Solo was not a learned man by any stretch. Anything that didn't include smuggling, shipping, racing, mechanics and the occasional rebellion was a mystery to him. How many times had he and Leia spent going over complicated issues relating to the various worlds and systems who had, or wanted to, become a part of the New Republic. Leia's own knowledge of the history, culture and politics of such issues had been uncanny, and Han had done his best to be attentive.  
Well, he'd made an effort.

But one thing he did know was galactic geography. Not by academic interest, but necessity. Being a smuggler, a racer and the owner of a shipping company (not to mention one of the leader of a galaxy-wide rebellion against the Empire) had made it important to know the best ways to get from one destination to another, how to get it done, and which were the best, fastest and (occasionally) slowest ways.

But not even he recognized this part of the galaxy. Regardless of the missing information.

"This map has been damaged," he told the young stowaways he had taken aboard his ship. "Even if someone wanted to use it, they wouldn't be able to unless they knew these places. And I doubt there are very many who do."

"Then the map is useless," said Finn, the young dark man who carried a secret. Han had seen that about him; he didn't know what secret, although he suspected. Few these days knew galactic history as well as he did. Or, more specifically, few knew the history of the Rebellion as well as he did. Or that Han had once been a part of it. The New Republic might have been born of the Rebel Alliance, but many within it had come to reject that past in favour of compromises and politics. Its early history was an inconvenience to it, and nothing dulled memory like decades-long peace.

"Not necessarily," the former Rebel said. "If someone has time, patience and the resources, it would be possible to rebuild the map. But few beings have such resources."

"The First Order does." Such certainty, Han thought.

"I'm sure." So did the New Republic. Maybe a few of the fortress worlds, and even elements among the crime syndicates. At the height of their power, the Hutts would have undoubtably had such capacities, but they had become a shadow of their past glory since Jabba's death thirty years prior. Since then, the underworld had become less uniform, as crime syndicates rose and fell, or remained but never large enough to claim any real power. A few had managed to hold onto power despite the Republic's campaign to root them out, such as the Black Sun. But they wouldn't waste such resources on trying to find a man who hadn't been a threat to them in decades. But who knew who else might be willing to track down this map.

"And this map will fetch a high price in some circles. Even since Luke disappeared, people have been looking for him. Not all of them friendly."

Rey and Finn turned their attention back to the smuggler. They were eager to hear more about Skywalker, a being that they had both heard about. Finn had been taught that the Last Jedi was the epitome of what the galaxy had disintegrated into: one that had spurned the progress and security brought by the Empire and returned to the insidious ways of sorcery that both the Sith and the Jedi had brought into being, or the corrupt practices of the Republics.

Rey had heard the stories of the one who had defeated the Empire single-handedly, killing the tyrannical Emperor and the sorcerer Darth Vader; the same stories had said that the Emperor had merely been a weak old man and that Vader had been the true ruler of the Empire, maintaining the frail Palpatine merely as a convenient misdirect. Others said the Emperor kept Vader around because he had powers that allowed him to prolong his life. Some even suggested that the Emperor himself had possessed powers. But all the stories said that Skywalker had been the one to defeat them both, the one who had destroyed the supposed Death Stars and defeated the Imperial fleet single-handedly with nothing but a laser sword and his powers at the Battle of Jakku.

Regardless, both wanted to know more, and here they had a man who had known Skywalker. Not as myth, but as a man. Perhaps even as a friend.

"Why did he leave?" Rey was the first who dared to ask a question.

Han sighed as he looked at the map without seeing it. He was remembering back; the difficult years of the Rebellion that had given him a family, the peace that had followed and how his family had thrived while being imperceptibly stretched further and further away from itself. And the moment when everything had changed, and their family had been broken. Han had lost his wife, his brother… and so much more.

Taking a deep breath, he forced himself to speak of those times that still had the power to cause him pain. "We were so sure that there was nothing we couldn't have overcome. After the Emperor was defeated, we thought the galaxy would by free and safe. The New Republic was born and would not repeat the mistakes of the past."

He paused a while before continuing. "Luke was training a new generation of Jedi. There was no one left to do it, so he took the burden on himself. For a time, it seemed all would be as it once was." He scoffed. "We should've known better. The First Order was on the rise, seemingly out of nowhere. It had become powerful in a blink as former Republic worlds, nostalgic of the Empire, joined it. The Republic didn't want another war. So, they sued for peace, guaranteeing to 'preserve' the First Order's integrity as long as it didn't try to expand by force. They agreed to the terms. The 'False Peace', many call it. And maybe they're right. And the price we paid for it..."

A well of emotion threatened to rise in him, but Han shoved it back down. He wouldn't break down in front of these… kids.

"The First Order demanded something more: no resurrection of the Jedi. And the Republic agreed to it. They destroyed it all, everything Luke had worked for since the Empire was defeated: betrayed; by the very government he had helped create. After the death of his…" a slight choke up made him pause for an instant. "… his students, Luke felt responsible. So, he just… walked away, from everything."

Silence met the end of his declaration. He had started pacing aimlessly, looking at worlds without seeing them, trying to shake away the emotions that were welling up inside him. Emotions he had spent years trying to deal with.

"Do you know what happened to him?" Finn asked in an even voice, one that surprised even him. It wasn't the story that had touched him: it was how Han was telling it; it held none of the clinical veneer of the First Order's dissection of galactic history.

Han shrugged. "A lot of rumours, but mostly stories. Thousands of them are out there. But the people who knew him best believe he went on a personal quest, searching for the first Jedi temple. But whether that's true or not…"

"The Jedi _were_ real?!" an amazed voice asked behind him. Rey had been listening intently as Han told his story and, from the moment he mentioned the Jedi, she had been watching him in wonder. In a single day, the stories of her youth had become real.

Han smiled slightly as he heard it. "Use to wonder about that myself. Thought it was just a bunch of mumbo-jumbo; a magical power holding together good and evil, the dark side and the light. But the crazy thing is…" he finally turned to watch the two young people he had unwittingly brought into this life, much as he had been himself long ago. "… it's true. The Force, the Jedi; all of it: it's all true."


	2. The First Lesson

**The First Lesson**

 _ **The first Jedi Temple**_ **,  
** _ **Ahch-To,  
34 ABY**_

She had been here for weeks when Luke finally came to here with an answer she wanted to hear.

She had been sleeping, as she always did, on the slab of rock just before the entrance to his hunt, waiting for him to rise against and resume his daily routine. Tonight though, he was waiting for her though he didn't wake her; it was more like she… _sensed_ him, hovering. "Tomorrow," he said. "At dawn. Three lessons. I will teach you the ways of the Jedi…" he turned to return to his hut. As he made to close the door, he turned back to her to finish his sentence: "… and why they need to end."

Rey felt a strange mix of elation at having finally worn the old Jedi down… and a sense of foreboding at his words. It was progress. But was it the kind she sought?

Relieved at no longer having to sleep on the hard slab of rock, exposed to the unforgiving elements of Ahch-To's climate or the judging stares of the Caretakers, Rey moved into one of the stone huts of the small village, and made herself a bunk on a stone bench in a dry corner. But sleep eluded her, as she pondered the mystery that Luke Skywalker remained for her.

For some reason she didn't quite understand, he seemed to place great importance on his chores. He did them diligently, almost gleefully, and appeared to take amusement from her growing frustrations as she had followed him all over the island as he fished, harvest milk from the strange creatures on the other side of the island, and collecting materials to make clothes, blankets and other necessities to survive on this island. But, if Jakku had taught Rey one thing, it was perseverance; she never gave up and, while the Jedi Master might have a strong will, so did she.

Their interaction in the whispering tree had been the only time that they had had a true heart-to-heart, and Rey had believed that she was finally getting through to the reclusive hero. And she had gotten through to him… only for him to disappoint her: he did not intend to help. In fact, he seemed to no longer care about anything that went beyond his hermitic life in the ruins of a once mighty Order.

It hadn't hit Rey until the next day what it truly was about, and why the Jedi Master refused to engage her: Luke Skywalker was in morning. Maybe this was why he had come this far and this remotely, where no soul could find him: he wanted to bear his grief alone. A few days after she had arrived, Rey had heard him getting up in the middle of the night and heading to the cliff ledge where she had first met him… where two small rock carvings had been made. They resembled memorials of sorts, Rey had thought at first. She had seen the Anchorites build similar ones in their holy places on Jakku. Luke had busied himself for a time, building a third stone next to the other two. The next day, she had returned out of curiosity.

They were memorials to three different people. One name, she didn't know. But the other two, she did.

 **Hedala**

 **Ben**

 **Han**

Even now, as she lay on her bunk in her hut, as a pang of grief overcame her as well, Rey regretted interfering in the Jedi Master's mourning.

-0-

As Luke rose from his sleep, he felt something he had felt in a very long time. He couldn't quite call it 'excitement', but it wasn't far off: 'anticipation' would have to be a better word.

As he pulled on his worn coat and prepared a small meal, he wondered about the young girl who had burst so suddenly (or so it seemed to him) onto the island. This had never been meant to be a pleasant retreat, and there were days when Luke could barely get up when the wave of regret, grief and responsibility crashed over him. But he always did, finding comfort in small things, such as the chores that had so exasperated him as a youth. Sometimes, he partook in the work of the Caretakers. And the rest, he gave over to his training. Even to this day, there were instances when he needed to spend a whole day focusing. But they were few and far between. In the years he had spent here, he had mastered the art of becoming 'small'. A sad smile came to his lips as he thought what Hedala would think if she could see him now.

But Rey's arrival had brought something new to his routine, and to his feelings. At first, she had followed him wherever he went, surprising him with her resolve and her patience. He would have given a lot to have her as a student when he had still been training apprentices. But that time had passed.

After they had spoken in the library, he had sensed something change in her. She still followed him, but less frequently. Sometimes, she would work on the _Falcon_ , sometimes she would train with her quarterstaff; yet other times, she tried to use what he guessed were the rudimentary powers in the Force that she could use at will. Once, he had fallen upon her as she trained, but she had forgone the quarterstaff… and had taken up his father's lightsaber. She used it with a skill born of someone who had learnt to fight early on, wielding in a meld of her own style and the style of a novice. Much as Luke himself had started his own training, when he'd had no Master to teach him. This was one skill that he had not considered essential when he had built his Temple; swordplay might be important, but it had not been swordplay that Yoda had taught him. It hadn't even been what Obi-Wan had been teaching him when they had had their one lesson aboard the _Falcon._ That was what Luke had tried to teach his own students.

Rey had been startled to see him, destroying a large rock with the saber which fell and almost crushed a few Caretakers. But she had persevered, and he had seen her training more and more with the lightsaber.

Now, as he had finished his breakfast, he needed to teach her an even more important lesson: the wonders of the Force… and its dangers. He needed her to understand what needed to be done. And why he had been wrong to believe the Jedi could return.

-0-

Rey woke with the sun, feeling more rested than she had in the past few weeks of sleeping on a hard slab in the open air. Rising was a struggle, but she did it, forcing herself to sit up while fighting the urge to return to a lying position.

Kylo Ren's microsutures were being removed by a medical droid as he sat in the medical bay. He was pondering Snoke's remarks to him; if 'remarks' was the right word to use in this instance. The scar that was being revealed would never disappear, and that had been Snoke's command also. A reminder of his failure on the ice moon.

Not that Kylo needed any help remembering his humiliation.

It happened suddenly, a sudden sense of otherness and unfamiliarity overcoming Rey as she still sat on her bunk. The feeling grew, and she started to look around her, seeking an explication to what had caused this feeling.

It happened suddenly.

Kylo dismissed the droid as he sensed a change in the Force. The feeling was one that reminded him of hyperspace travel, bringing to him noises that he could hear although the room was utterly silent… a sense of familiarity.

He started looking around him, seeking the source of this disturbance.

Their eyes met as suddenly as the disturbance had begun. The whispers that had marked it ended, and only the sound of their instantly ragged breathing was heard.

Rey saw Kylo Ren sitting opposite her, on the other stone bench of the little hut. Dread filled her in an instant, mingled with utter surprise that kept her paralyzed.

Kylo saw Rey, sitting in the med bay alongside him. He had rarely been surprised by anything in the last few years… save by her. She had surprised him twice on the ice moon, and once more now.

But how?

How was this possible? How could he have found her?

How could she have gotten here without him sensing her?

Rey reacted first.

Seizing the blaster that lay beside her on the bunk, she aimed and fired before Kylo had a change to move. He jumped as the shot hit him… but nothing had happened.

Kylo had disappeared after she had fired. Only a gapping hole in the side of the hut remained where the blaster bolt had hit it. Rey noticed that she could hear other sounds again, but the whispers of the disturbance had not disappeared. Rising to her feet, she pulled back the cape that covered the door and ran outside into the light of Ahch-To's twin suns, her blaster ready to fire again if she ran into her enemy.

But he was nowhere to be seen in the deserted village. Everything was as it should be.

And yet… she could still hear the whispers.

They steadily grew louder once again and, soon, sound had vanished. And there he was again.

He was standing now and looked at her with a surprise mingled with triumph. He extended his hand as he had when he had held her prisoner on the ice moon. "You will bring Luke Skywalker to me."

But nothing happened. Her mind remained her own and she did not feel his invading thoughts scouring hers.

Resigned to his inability to use his powers on her, Kylo pulled back his arm and lowered his hand. "You're not doing this: the effort would kill you."

Anger was starting to rise, replacing the surprise that had overcome her at first. This was the man who had tortured her, killed Han Solo (his own father) and almost killed Finn. And he appeared as though he was merely standing there, enjoying the sight of his surroundings.

"Can you see my surroundings?" he asked as he apparently looked out over the sea.

"You're going to pay for what you did!" she said, her anger finally letting loose.

"I can't see yours; just you. This is something else."

He sounded genuinely curious and Rey's anger abated a little as she saw a different look on his face, one of curiosity and slight wonder at this new discovery. Was that a trace of the boy he had been before?

Then, Luke opened the door to his hut. Rey turned to him and tensed. What if Kylo could see him? Would he be able to find them?

The alarm on her face told him what had happened. "Luke?" he asked, the wonder giving way to a harder look.

"What's that about?" asked the Jedi Master, seemingly from far away. Rey turned to him to see him indicating the place where Kylo was standing and turned around in horror…

…to see he had been pointing at the gaping hole in the side of her hut, which was being fixed by two, very angry Caretakers. In fact, the village was now full of Caretakers tending to various duties. The activity surprised Rey. How long had she been standing there, looking at Kylo? It can't have been more than a few minutes.  
Luke had asked her a question she needed to answer. "I was cleaning my blaster. It went off." The lie came on its own. Even had she had time to think, she wouldn't have told him about Kylo. They had reached an understanding and he had finally consented to give her the training she had been asking for. She couldn't jeopardize that precarious truce yet.

Luke nodded and turned to leave the village. "Let's get started."

As they ascended the steps to a destination Luke had yet to go to, Rey wondered about what had just happened, trying to reassure herself. Kylo had seen her and she had seen her. But it seemed that was all they could see. And he couldn't touch her in spite of this link.

But the thought did little to comfort her.

-0-

Luke led Rey up to the Temple, a place he had not visited often past the first few months of his stay on Ahch-To.

The Temple had been built into the mountain itself, the rock being moulded into tunnels, chambers and a few halls. Mosaic figures had also been carved, referencing the early history of the Jedi as well as their evolution during their time on this island. The most prominent mosaic was the one that lay in the centre of the great hall that led to the meditation promontories. It lay in a pool of rain water that came from a drip at the top of the high hall, and represented a figure sitting in meditation and balance. Luke's research had come across such a being in much of the Jedi's recorded history… or what little had not been destroyed by the Empire: it was the Prime Jedi. Luke wasn't sure whether it was an actual person, though some Jedi scholars he had met insisted that the Prime had been the very first of the Jedi. But maybe it represented an ideal, one the Jedi had sought to reach. If that were true, Luke was certain that the Jedi had failed.

He moved slowly through the halls, giving Rey time to take in what she saw. But, instead of waiting for her in the great hall, he went to the nearest meditation promontory. He held a reed he had picked as they climbed in his right hand. He didn't know why but he enjoyed holding something when he taught.

He stood before the stone altar designed for meditating Jedi to behold the view of the vast ocean before them. Such a choice was understandable; although the ocean looked calm and still, it was its own world, one a meditating Jedi could sense through the Force.

Rey joined him there and he turned to face her when she started speaking.

"Master Skywalker, we need you to bring the Jedi back because Kylo Ren and his allies are strong with the dark side of the Force. Without them, we won't stand a chance against them."

Luke was amused at her attempt to speak his language, but it was clear that she spoke with only rudimentary knowledge and was repeating what other people had told her. "What do you know about the Force?"

The question surprised her, more than it should have. Being a teacher wasn't always about giving answers: it was about asking the questions that led to the answers… and to understanding. A good teacher asks as many questions as he answers, Luke had come to think.

"It's a power that Jedi have that lets them control people and… make things… float," she answered, uncertainly.

"Impressive. Every word in that sentence was wrong. Lesson one, sit her. Legs crossed."

After a brief hesitation, she obeyed.

"The Force," Luke started, standing beside her. "is not a power you have. It's not about lifting rocks. It's the energy between all things; the power, the tension that holds the galaxy together."

"Right," Rey said, the uncertainty and confusion plain on her face. "But… _what_ is it?"

Luke had been in this situation countless times, not merely with students, but also with beings who didn't understand what the Force was or how exceptional it was. Because there was only so much that words could convey. Sometimes, it was necessary to feel.

"Close your eyes," he told Rey.

She did so.

"Breathe."

He waited as he breathing steadied and became regular.

"Now… reach out."

And Rey extended her hand.

A tickling touched her fingers and Rey jumped. "Oh, I feel something."

"Really?" Luke asked next to her.

"Yes, I feel it!"

"That's the Force."

"Really?"

"Wow, it must be really strong with you."

Rey was pleased but surprised at the amusement she heard in Luke's voice… and then a sharp slap came over her hand. Her eyes opened as she shook the pain away… to see Luke looking at her sternly, amusement gone… and the reed he had used to tickle her fingers in his hand.

Embarrassed, Rey put a hand on her heart. "You meant 'reach out' like…"

Luke just gaped at her.

"I'll try again."

She resumed her position while Luke threw his reed over the side of the promontory.

He took her hands in his and placed them flat on the stone beside her. "Breathe," he said, drawing out the word. Rey closed her eyes again and did as she was told.

"Just breathe," Luke removed his hands from hers. "Reach out with your feelings."

Rey wasn't sure she understood what he meant but she tried at as she understood it: she became aware of what she felt around her. What she touched, what she smelt, what she heard; everything her senses were telling her. And always breathing.

"What do you see?" Luke whispered.

At first, she saw nothing.

And then, gradually, she began to _see._

Her senses were so much more than what _she_ could feel and see. It was life, all around her.

"The island," she said. As she saw the island, not merely as it was but as it had been, battered by storms and winters, populated and uninhabited. Maybe even as it would be one day.

"Life." Plants, insects, the Caretakers, the porgs, Chewbacca and countless other creatures. Some she didn't even known had existed. And the vast world of the deeps that, for all the stillness of the surface, was teaming.

"Death and decay…" The remains of long dead creatures, both hunters and prey. Bones buried in the cold earth for times gone by.

"… that feeds new life." And she saw the plants that grew, the birth that came from demise. A cycle never ending of tragedy and joy, as plants grew anew and beasts feasted on them and the ones who had been there before them.

"Warmth." Not the searing swelter of Jakku, but the heat that warmed rocks and turned water into mist.

"Cold." The swirling cold of the ocean, which was home to those whose blood ran as cold as it.

"Peace." Porgs pouring over their younglings, content for a brief instant that may seem to last for an eternity.

"Violence." The broken nest beside the violent waves or fallen prey to sky-bound predators.

"And between it all," a voice came to her from far away. It was Luke, and she could tell by the tone in his voice that he _understood._ What her words had failed to say, to explain, to convey the depth of what she was experiencing, was not lost on him. He knew what she knew. He had felt what she felt. He had known what she would see… and that she would understand.

"Balance, an energy…" The word came to her in its truest sense. "… A Force."

"And inside you?"

"Inside me…" she smiled. "… that same Force."

"And this is the lesson. That Force does not belong to the Jedi. To say that "if the Jedi die, the light dies" is just vanity. Can you feel that?"

She could. And it was wonderful. They may not no it, but no one was ever truly alone. Rey remembered the times she had spent on Jakku and wished she had known then what she knew now: loneliness was a choice...

…but there was something else.

"There's something else," Rey told Luke, and he heard the sudden tension in her voice.

She had felt it, what he had also felt when he had first come to the island.

"There's a place," she said. "A cold place. A dark place."

Luke nodded. "Balance: power from light, power from darkness."

"It's calling me," she said.

Luke heard rumbling around him and turned to see rocks falling from ledges, or jumping up from the once still ground. Some continued their jumps while others remained in the air as the Force in Rey began to work. The tremoring promontory cracked as the shacking strengthened.

Anxious, Luke turned back to the girl. "Resist it, Rey."

But she wasn't hearing him. She was pushing too far, no longer carried by the Force but trying to force it to part for her. She was seeking the darkness. "Rey," he said again, turning to face her. Sweat was matting her face as the tremors in the promontory grew stronger and the crack widened to reach the ledges.

"Rey," Luke shouted at her.

For a terrible moment, he thought that he had lost her, and that they would soon be tumbling down to their death when the promontory would break.

And then it ended.

Rey was violently pushed pack, off the altar and hard onto her back. She was drenched, not in sweat, but in water. Where it had come from, Luke did not know. But he knew one thing: the Force had struck back. As it always did.

Panting, Rey pulled herself up into a sitting position. Luke remained where he was in front of the stone altar, his back to sea. An expression of dread on his face.

"You went straight to the dark," he told the shaken girl before him.

"That place…" she said, urgently. "It was trying to show me something."

"It offered something you need," the Jedi Master said. "And you didn't even try to stop yourself."

He turned around the altar, passed Rey and made to leave. As he was entering the great hall, she said something that stopped him in his tracks.

"I didn't see you. I saw _everything_. But nothing from you. No light, no dark. Nothing. You've closed yourself off from the Force."

The horror in her voice was unmistakable. She had had her first taste of what the Force truly was. And, as many before her, she was entranced with what she had seen. It was inconceivable to her that someone would voluntarily separate themselves from the Force.

But that was what Luke had done. After months of training, he had made himself small until he could no longer feel the call of the Force. Nor could he use the powers that it granted him. But that was a small price to pay.

A price Rey would have to learn to accept.

Luke turned back to look at her. "I've seen this raw strength only once before, in Ben Solo. It didn't scare me enough then. It does now."

He turned away, leaving Rey alone on the meditation promontory.


	3. The Second Lesson

**Author's Note: Be warned, there is much exposition in this chapter. This is a piece I have been holding onto for years, a backstory I imagined for the Jedi based on Han's words in _T_** _ **he Force Awakens**_ **about Luke's quest for the first Jedi temple. It grew as I read more and more of the new EU and using some old information about the early history of the Jedi Order. I hope that you all enjoy it, it certainly was a thrill for me to finally write it. I plan to write the next, final chapter of this story in the next few days. Thanks again for reading.**

 **The Second Lesson**

 _ **The first Jedi Temple**_ **,  
** _ **Ahch-To,  
34 ABY**_

A storm was lashing at the island, veils of rain relentlessly hitting the rocks and all that stood on them, while violent winds forces waves against its shores.

Rey pulled her hood back as she entered the _Falcon_ and made for the cockpit. Chewie had been trying to reach anyone from the New Republic fleet, but to no avail. Ahch-To was deep in the Unknown Regions where long-rang transmissions were impossible. The nearest communication relays were too far even for the _Falcon_ 's impressive transmitters to reach them, and Chewie told her as such. He had been hopeful that he could use tricks he had learnt on his native Kashyyyk to boost the signals but, so far, his efforts had been unsuccessful.

"Keep trying," she said as she watched seated in the co-pilot's chair, surrounded by porgs whose presence confused her; were they the Wookie's pets or an annoyance he could not get rid of? "And… if you do… ask about Finn?"

He grunted his approval before turning to roar at the porg that had perched on his shoulder.

Rey left the cockpit and returned outside, remaining under the cover of the _Falcon_ 's bulk but delighting at the sight of the falling rain. A smile on her face, she extended a hand to feel it on her hand. On Jakku, water had been a valuable resource, fought over and hoarded for survival or advantage. Here, it was abundant and allowed the land to grow, allowed life to thrive rather than survive. Even when she had been cold and wet on those long nights waiting for Luke to emerge from his hut, it had never ceased to delight her.

-0-

Kylo Ren looked beyond the transparasteel to the dark of the void and the floating asteroids floating in space… when he heard the sound of waves.

-0-

Rey was listening to the waves when whispers reached her ears. At first, she was confused until she recognized them.

-0-

Kylo turned await from the viewport…

-0-

…and he met Rey's eyes, as the whispers, the sounds of waves and any other sound died around them. Only their breaths could be hear.

-0-

"Why is the Force connecting us?" Kylo asked her, the same confusion she had seen in him before reappearing. "You and I."

"Murderous snake," she lashed out at him, anger dominating any other emotions that she might feel. "You're too late, you've lost: I've found Skywalker."

To her surprise, Kylo smiled slightly.

"Did he tell you what happened?" She didn't know if her expression turned from angry to confused but he continued regardless: "After his Temple was destroyed, did he tell you what happened? Did he tell you why all this has happened?"

"I don't need to know! I know everything I need to know about you."

"You do?" he asked, moving closer. As he approached, she saw him scanning her face. A look of hurt appeared but not one of surprise. "Oh, you do. You have that look, from the forest; when you called me a monster."

"You are a monster," she whispered.

He moved even closer until he was so close that she had to look up into his eyes and that, had there not been the distance of a galaxy between them, he could have touched her.

"Yes, I am," he whispered back. There was an unmistakable sadness in his voice… and Rey's anger left her.

The waves crashed on the side of the island and pulled her out of the vision.

-0-

Kylo passed his hand over his face as he felt something on it. For a moment, he feared that they were tears. But when his hand came away, his glove was covered in spray; salted spray.

Tightening his fist, Kylo angrily tried to repress the emotions that Rey had unwilling brought up in him.

-0-

The next day, Luke found Rey meditating on one of the Temple's promontories. He knew she had returned there frequently since their first lesson. The first time, he had followed her, fearful that she might once again try to reach the darkness present on the island.

Luke had felt it himself when he had arrived; a cold, insidious presence that reminded him of the cave on Dagobah. Yoda had refused to tell him where the darkness had come from. It had taken years for Luke to understand what could have created such a wellspring. Only dark deeds, and the nearby presence of strong Force wellspring, could have caused it. In the years following the end of the Galactic Civil War, Luke had succumbed to a guilty curiosity… and visited the Sith homeworld of Korriban.

Yoda had told him of the world where the Sith Lords had been born; where they had perpetuated their darkest arts. And where the dark side remained strong. He had also told him of some of the rituals that they had performed to strengthen their power. The worst of them all had been the sacrifice of Jedi, an event that scared the Force forever with pain and fear. How Yoda had found the will to enter the sacrificial chamber, Luke would never know: he had tried, and failed. Within moments of his failure, he had returned to his ship and left Korriban, never to return.

Where the darkness of the cave here on Ahch-To had come from, Luke didn't know either. But he had felt its pull the moment he had arrived on the island, its malevolence reawakened by the return of a Force-sensitive being to the Temple. Its presence had been a great incentive to his training, compelling him to find a way to close himself off from the Force. As experience had shown him, it was easier to compel such an effect on another being than it was forcing yourself to achieve such an aim. Much like the effort it took for a Forceful being to heal another rather than himself, it had taken Luke months of relentless concentration to gain his first success. And many more to maintain that state.

But Rey hadn't gone to the dark. Instead, she had immersed herself in meditation and concentration, using the patience she had already mastered from her life of misery on Jakku to deepen her understanding of the Force. Once again, Luke found himself regretting that he hadn't found her earlier.

Today, he waited for her to complete her mediation, standing in the great hall as she spent hours seated on the promontory overlooking the ocean.

Finally, she rose and returned to the great hall to find him standing there. He thought he saw apprehension in her face as she laid eyes on him. He couldn't blame her; in the days following the first lesson, he had barely spoken to her. He hadn't been as rough as the moment when the lesson had ended, but he had kept a distance between them. Not one of fear or resentment, but one he had adopted with all his students when he wanted them to absorb the lesson he wanted them to remember.

Or so he had told himself.

But now, it was time for her second lesson.

Luke moved towards the centre of the great hall, until he stood next to the pool of the Prime Jedi.

"Lesson Two," he said. "What did you learn before?"

Rey shrugged. "You showed me what the Force is."

"And do you feel like you understand it?"

"Yes!" came the answer, with an unwavering certainty.

Luke looked at her and arched an eyebrow. He had heard this answer many times.

Rey's certainty did not remain: "And no," she admitted after a moment's thought. "I think I understand what it is and how it comes to be… but then I meditate again and… it's as if I learn everything again. As if the Force is no longer the same as the last time I felt it."

Luke smiled, approvingly. "The more we think we know about the Force, the less we actually know. It never remains the same. And it does not belong to us. The Force is everything and nothing at the same time; everyone has it in their way, but no one owns it. And there are beings who are sensitive to it… and others who are not."

He paused to let the information sink in.

"But today is not going to be a lesson about the Force. Today, I want to tell you about the Jedi themselves."

Rey's confusion vanished to give way to excitement. Luke knew that she had been raised on stories of the Jedi, as had countless beings in the galaxy. When he had been young, he had also craved such stories. Now, he wished people wouldn't tell them anymore.

Looking up and around him at the great hall, he asked: "Do you know why this Temple was built?"

"It's the first Jedi Temple. This is where they were born."

That much was true.

"But do you know why?"

She didn't.

"The Jedi were not born by accident, or just appeared into being. They were the consequence of mistakes made long ago by beings who should have known better."  
He started to pace while Rey remained where she was. It had taken him many years to piece all this information together, but he hadn't understood the whole story until it was too late.

"The Force wasn't always known to the galaxy. Knowledge of it was limited, fragmented by the various cultures and sentient beings who could use it. But when space travel grew and grew to link countless worlds together, they began to notice the… similarities between various abilities and phenomena that had occurred across their recorded histories. Scientists, researchers, philosophers and wise men of all cultures came together to understand what it was we shared… and they discovered the Force."

He spoke with wonder. How they must have been thrilled, exhilarated at the idea of what they had discovered.

"But discovery also breads darker ideas. Now that they had found it, what were they to do with it? Use it? Leave it? Spread it? These were wise men… and ambitious ones. A group of dissidents among them decided that they alone, through their link to the Force, could truly choose what was best for the galaxy at large. That their power was the only justification they needed to impose their "guidance" on others. Not all agreed, and the others fought back. And the result… was a galactic war such as none had ever seen before."

With help from Jedi scholars, and explorers such as Lor San Tekka, Luke had found ancient texts that had retraced this old history. Even in his youth, when he had been held prisoner by a Jedi artefact-hoarding Hutt lord named Grakkus, he had caught glimpses of this early history in the Holocrons that he had been forced to activate to prove his Force-sensitivity.

They had called it the 'Hundred-Year Darkness'.

"The war eventually ended. And the victors, seeing the destruction that their power had wrought upon the galaxy, swore that it would never happen again. They exiled their foes into the unknown reaches of the galaxy, sentencing them to endless wandering as punishment for their crimes. But they also chose exile, swearing that they would never unleash their power upon the galaxy ever again."

Luke spread his arms. "They chose this planet as their sanctuary, built this Temple to house themselves. A remote place known to few, where they could continue their studies of the Force… and contain the excesses of their power."

He stopped pacing, and turned to look Rey in the eye.

"They… were the first of the Jedi."

The scavenger had been looking at him in wonder, fascinated by this exposition of galactic history.

Luke turned away from her again. "And they failed in their goal."

"Why?" Rey asked, surprised by the sudden change in Luke's tone.

"They were meant to stay here. Hidden from the galaxy, unable to cause pain or use the Force to dominate others. But they didn't. They chose to leave when the exiles returned, having discovered new worlds in their travels, worlds who accepted or submitted to their domination. They had become the Sith Lords. The Jedi chose to confront them. And the next thousand years were an almost unending war for control of the galaxy until finally the Sith were defeated."

Luke turned to look at the mosaic of the Prime Jedi on the floor of the great hall. "And instead of returning here, as their covenant declared that they should, they remained, installing themselves as the caretakers of the Galactic Republic. They had become what they feared: no longer scholars or thinkers who meditated about the Force, but warriors and peacekeepers…"

Luke sighed with a deep sorrow and regret.

"… who fell prey to the same trap that ensnared their Republic: corruption."

-0-

"Now that they're extinct," Luke told Rey, as he sat down on ledge of the small pool. "The Jedi are romanticized, even deified. But if you strip away the myth and look at their deeds, the legacy of the Jedi is failure, hypocrisy and hubris."

The scavenger couldn't believe she was hearing this from the mouth of the one who, to her mind and those of others, was supposed to be the greatest defender of the Jedi.

"That's not true!" she said as she moved towards him.

He looked up at her and, in his sorrow, there was a slight hint of anger. Or was it disappointment.

"At the height of their power, they allowed Darth Sidious to rise, create the Empire and wipe them out." And, in a lower voice, he added: "And it was a Jedi Master who was responsible for the training and creation of Darth Vader."

"And a Jedi who stopped him," she countered, remembering the stories she had heard about the deeds of Luke Skywalker. "The most powerful being in the galaxy, but you found a way to beat him. He terrorized the galaxy and you stopped him."

Luke smiled broadly, to her great surprise. "What's so funny?"

"It would have been better for the galaxy if I had told them then what truly happened. But Leia and I agreed that the time… wasn't right. The galaxy had been at war for too long. It wouldn't have understood. We might have destroyed everything that we had been working to create."

Rey didn't understand yet, but the Jedi Master wasn't done. "I wasn't trying to stop Vader: I was trying to save him."

The surprise mingled with the confusion in Rey. Save Vader, she thought. How could it be possible to save such a creature? She had heard such terrible, terrible stories about. About how he had been sealed into an armour because he had sacrificed parts of himself to become more powerful. How he had used the Force to kill any being who defied him or even displeased him. How he had been so powerful that entire armies had gone up against him with their most powerful weapons and that none had been able to even dent his armour. And that none had ever escaped alive.

Rey didn't believe all these stories: if no one had escaped alive, how could such stories have come to be? But every fiction had a base in truth, and the stories about Vader had haunted this galaxy for years, even decades after his death.

How could you want to save such a creature?

"Why?" was the only thing Rey was able to ask.

Luke laughed. "It's… complicated."

He didn't seem to want to say more, but Rey saw a light in his eyes as he thought back to those times. What could make him remember a confrontation that had changed the course of galactic history so dramatically… with fondness?

"I was trying to save him. But in the end, when the Emperor tried to kill me, Vader… was the one who saved me. And he gave his life to do it."

Luke looked up at her. "Vader didn't just save me that day. He destroyed the last remnant of the Sith, its last two practioners. Sidious… and himself." He redeemed himself before he died!"

"We told no one. And I became a legend."

He fell silent for a while. Rey couldn't tear her eyes away from his old, tired face. Nor could she tear her thoughts away from what he had just told her. _Vader_ had saved the galaxy all those years ago. How was that possible? Her mind struggled during those moments of silence, trying to make sense of it. Trying to untangle what she had thought all these years, and what Luke had just told her. In the end, she couldn't. And only one question, of the thousands she could have asked, made it through. Perhaps the most important one of all.

"Why did you tell me that?" she asked in a whisper, as if she hoped that he wouldn't hear.

The Jedi Master smiled wearily at her.

"Because I need you… to understand."

"Understand what?"

"What we need to do."

For now, Rey _didn't_ understand.

But Luke wasn't finished. "After the war ended, balance returned to the galaxy. Peace returned. And I sought to do what my Master had instructed me to do when he died: rebuild the Jedi. Pass on what he had taught. First, I needed to learn more, to learn as many things as I could teach. But it wasn't until I saw him that I decided the time had come."

Luke smiled sadly. "Ben, my nephew. With that mighty Skywalker blood. In need of training to control his abilities. But he wasn't the only one. There were many who needed me, who had been ostracized, persecuted or manipulated for their powers. I found them or they came to me because I could guide them. Teaching them how to use their skills. But mostly, they sought something else. Something you also seek."

"Purpose," she said.

"Yes. And I tried to give it to them. I took Ben, and a dozen students, and began a training temple."

Suddenly, he rose, almost making Rey jump. They had been sitting here for what seemed simultaneously like mere and whole hours. She was still struggling to take in everything he was telling her.

"You know what happened, don't you." It wasn't a question.

"Yes," she answered.

"Han told you."

"Yes."

She thought she heard a slight caver in his voice as he continued. "They lured me away. Supposedly on urgent business for the New Republic. But I sensed something was wrong. And I returned as fast as I could. When I got back, the Temple was burning, and my students were gone. Most were dead, but some had surely escaped. I refused to believe otherwise. I buried the fallen and I went in search of the survivors. I spent months tracking them, following every lead I could, while hunters tracked me. But I was unsuccessful… I failed. Not just them, but everyone. Leia blamed the First Order, Han blamed himself and the Republic… but it was me. I failed them."

He paused.

"Because I was Luke Skywalker. Jedi Master."

He turned to her once again. "A legend."

Rey was trembling as she saw the tears shine in his eyes, and the regret that she had witnessed when they had first met was now clear to her.

And she understood.

That was why he was here. That was why he had been bearing the grief here alone rather than with his family, rather than try again to rebuild the Jedi or to save the galaxy from itself. He was renewing the ancient covenant he had spoken of: the Jedi's withdrawal from the secular.

"But the galaxy might need a legend," she told him. "I need someone to show me my place in all of this. To give me purpose."

She rose, still holding his gaze.

"And you didn't fail Kylo. Kylo failed you… by succumbing. I won't."

But she was beginning to understand where he was coming from.

-0-

A horn sounded in the distance, breaking the spell that history had cast over the great hall.

Rey heard it coming from the sea and ran out onto the promontory to see what was happening. Several barges were coming in at high speeds towards the shore, close to where the lights revealed the village of the Caretakers.

"It's a tribe from the neighbouring island," Luke said, coming to stand next to her. "They come here once a month to raid and plunder the village."

"Then, come on," she said, heading for the great hall. "We have to stop them."

"Do you know what a true Jedi would do right now?" Luke asked. He hadn't moved an inch and kept watching the approaching barges. "Nothing."

"This is not a lesson," she said, incredulously. "They're going to get hurt, we have to help them."

"If you meet that raiding party with force…" the Jedi Master said, turning to her with a stern edge in his voice. "…they'll come back next month with greater numbers and greater violence. Will you be hear next month? That burn inside you, that anger about what the raiders are about to do? The books in the Jedi library say to ignore that: only act when you can maintain balance. Even when people get hurt."

He had been speaking over her shoulder as they both looked down at the approaching raiders, discernible by the light of the torches they had lit. And the next instant, Rey was gone before Luke could say anything else.

Surprised, he looked after her running form in the great hall. "Rey! Wait!"

But she wouldn't.

Running as fast as she could, she barrelled through the great hall, through the corridors and out of the Temple. She needed to reach the village before the raiders caused too much damage.

Knowing the stairs would take too long, she took shortcuts through steep patches that her expert feet, used to climbing the hulks of Star Destroyers and other ships in the Graveyard of Giants on Jakku, managed instinctively. When she reached the first small cliff, her instinct guided her down it, jumping down the three meters to reach the ground below with barely a scratch. She continued to run in this fashion until she reached the beach, and then started running much faster than she ever had. Had her meditations allowed her to develop this new, instinctive approach to using the Force? Perhaps. Or was it something else? Something she had started to suspect ever since she had first seen Kylo appear to her?

Regardless, she was no able or willing to explain her ability right now. She needed to help the Caretakers.

She drew the lightsaber she still had hanging at her belt, igniting the blame so that its hiss accompanied her as she jumped over rocks towards the lit form of the village on the shore.

Eventually, she reached it, rapidly climbed the steps to the drift wood gate that covered the entrance. She slashed it with her blade, lunged in, raised the saber and…

…froze in stupefaction.

In front of her was… a party.

The Caretakers were dancing… with other members of their species.

These ones appeared different, not sporting the white robes of the Caretakers, but clothes similar to the ones Luke wore. Although more intricate and decorated than the simple ones favoured by the Jedi Master. And they were all dancing to the tunes played on handmade percussion and wind instruments by other members of the species.

The music died as they noticed her, and the dancing ended as they all beheld her… and the anger and incredulity faded from her to be replaced by embarrassment.

She lowered the lightsaber, but one of the Caretakers, who was holding a cord, pointed at the blade and starting twirling her cord in the air. Rey looked at her, afraid that she understood what it was she wanted her to do. The Caretaker nodded and repeated her move.

Sighing heavily, Rey indulged her and rose the lightsaber above her head… and twirled it.

The Caretakers and their partners erupted into cheers of delight, and the music and dancing resumed. Embarrassed, Rey lowered and extinguished the lightsaber… before noticing Chewie and R2 in the corner, the first sitting with a drink in each hand, the second with decorative cords hanging around him.

"Seriously?" Rey said as she saw them, and Chewie laughed to her further discomfort.

-0-

As the celebrations continued, Rey noticed a solitary figure standing by the shore. Anger swelled in her as she recognized him.

"Raid and plunder?!" she asked furiously as she joined him.

"In a way," Luke said with undisguised amusement in his voice, as he turned to face her.

"Was this a joke?"

"Sorry, I didn't think you'd…" he broke off as laughter escaped him. "…run so fast."

"I thought they were in danger. I was trying to do something!"

"And that's what the galaxy needs," Luke said, suddenly serious. "Not some old failed husk of a religion. Do you really think the Jedi defeated the Empire? We may have helped, but it was the Rebellion that won that war and ended its oppression. The ordinary beings who could no longer keep their opposition quiet. They started it, they built it and they won their war. We were only along for the ride. Do you understand now?"

"I understand that across the galaxy our real friends are really dying," she said in anger, fed up with the older man's lessons. "That old legend of Luke Skywalker that you hate so much: I believed in it. So do countless others. It gives them hope. It's what allows a little girl to believe that she won't spend the rest of her life alone and afraid."

Suddenly, the anger left her. Only disappointment remained.

"I was wrong."

And, with those final words, she left her hero behind.

Luke remained where he was, too stunned to call her back; to try and make her understand what he had tried to teach her today. But he knew it wouldn't help.

Turning back to the sea, he tried to ignore the part of him that told him that she may be right.


	4. The Third Lesson

**The Third Lesson**

 _ **The first Jedi Temple**_ **,  
** _ **Ahch-To,  
34 ABY**_

Luke stood in the shadows at the entrance of the meditation promontory, just before the light from the moon cast its glare over the stone ledge. A clear night was still illuminating the island, but dark clouds were gathering in the distance. Lightening didn't show yet and this might be another instance of an apparent downpour that wouldn't come. Ahch-To's climate had always been unpredictable.

The Jedi Master had left the Caretakers' village shortly after Rey had left him there. He had spent the next few hours wandering, lost in thought. He was struggling with feelings, emotions and beliefs that had lain dormant for years; that he had struggled to come to terms with by coming to this island. But from the moment Rey had arrived, from the moment she had handed him his father's lightsaber, they had been gradually fighting their way back to the surface. They worked as insidiously as the visions and dreams that he occasionally experienced; the visions that the Force occasionally worked back to him despite his isolation from it. For hours, he had walked, climbed, and even ran to try and force them back down.

But he was eventually forced to admit that there was no escaping from it: Rey was right.

Maybe not about everything, but she had been right about the suffering in the galaxy. Luke had thought that withdrawing would prevent the type of abuses of the Force's power that he had witnessed during the Empire's time, the control that Vader and Sidious had exercised over the galaxy because of that power. Maybe he had been lying to himself. Maybe he had never meant to stay here. Maybe he had only be preparing for what he knew needed to be done.

There was only one way to find out.

It had taken him longer than he thought, as his thoughts continued to struggle with themselves, restraining his decision. As he drew closer to the Temple, he fought the urge to enter it, spending long minutes trying to convince himself that this was what needed to be done. That he needed to forgo everything that he had been doing for the past few years… in a mere instant. It took him the better part of an hour to reach the great hall… and still he hesitated to leave the shadows of the cave to stand beside the meditation altar.

It was only right that it happen here, he had thought. That the place where Rey had truly connected with the Force for the first time would be the place where he would open himself to it again.

Eventually, Luke stepped out into the open air onto the promontory. He placed his hands on the altar, both his bare, organic one and the leather gloved mechanical one he had learnt to live with. Feeling the cold stone on his bare fingers and the wind tousling his mane of hair, he closed his eyes.

In the great hall, the water of the Prime Jedi's pool started to simmer. Pebbles along the cliff started to dislodge and fall, a few of them remaining suspended in the air. Around Luke, others were rising from the ground, much as they had when Rey had gone to the darkness.

The barriers, which time and practice had brought out between Luke and the Force, came down easily, and the Jedi Master's senses were soon flying far and wide, on the invisible currents of the mysterious energy that bound all life together. Luke felt a rush of pure joy return to him as they did, as if a part of him that had been removed was finally restored…

…and then, he felt the pain.

He started to tremble and sweat appeared on his brow despite the cool of the evening. He was feeling it all, almost all the feelings, all the disturbances, that had marked or scared the Force since he had closed himself off from it. All the pain inflicted, the deaths that had hollowed it, the battles that had come and the destructions that would never be overcome. A system cratered where a bomb of significant power had fractured it, leaving it oozing darkness just as the wounds of Jedha or the absence of Alderaan still scared the galaxy. A war declared between old enemies and new ones. A welter of voices, screaming in pain, rage and despair, carried as memories to Luke's mind. Threatening to overcome him.

In the skies above the island, the storm was revealing itself. Lightning veined the clouds whose course had changed… and accelerated to engulf the moon and cover the night above the Temple.

Scared and desperate, Luke sought a way out, a way to escape the madness that was overcoming him. He sought comfort rather than retreat.

-0-

Light years away, in what had once been a stateroom but had been converted into a medical unit, a lone white figure rested on a bed. The lines on the monitors were the only signs of a life remaining in a body ravaged by time and injury.

The monitors flared to life, green lights turning to red and urgent beeps indicating sudden activity. An organic right hand, which had been lying motionless, clenched suddenly while a face partially disfigured by cybernetic enhancements started to twitch. Soon, the monitors calmed and the fist unclenched… and the small lips pulled back into a smile while the eyes, one organic, the other cybernetic, remained closed.

"Luke…"

-0-

"Leia!"

Luke's eyes opened suddenly as he had felt his sister's presence. He had sought comfort and he had found it. A small flame in a galaxy of misery, itself burning faintly despite its own pain. Not yet extinguished.

The Jedi Master stumbled away from the altar as the full weight of what he had felt fell on him. Such pain and destruction. Such fear and hopelessness. Leia's pain, so raw despite her remarkable self-control. Her raw grief at the death of the man she loved… at the hands of their own son. And his own, horrid realization: that one of the deaths he had felt had been his best friend's, his brother's… and he hadn't even been able to identify which one.

Feeling tears well up inside him, Luke realized what had been done to the galaxy by his absence… and he now understood, more than ever, what needed to be done.

He turned his back as the rain just started falling from the clouds that had gathered above the island. He needed to find Rey. It was time for her third lesson.

And, then, the Jedi would really and truly end.

-0-

Rey was walking at a hard pace along the paths of Ahch-To's island. Anger and frustration were still present in her, all directed at the old man she had crossed light years to find. What could have caused this living legend to become so withdrawn and callous? She still believed she was missing something.

The whispers were fleeting this time, and suddenly she was aware that the sounds surrounding her had been muffled. She stopped in her tracks, her eyes closing in resignation. "I'd rather not do this now," she said.

"Yeah, me too." Kylo's voice answered somewhere to her right.

But the Force, apparently, had other plans.

And there was something that Rey needed to know.

"Why did you hate your father?" the question came out suddenly… but her curiosity was wiped away when she beheld Kylo. "Oh," she said as she saw him, unable to help herself.

He was bare-chested, the scar Finn had given him during their fight on the ice moon clear on the right side of his upper chest, and a further one on his shoulder where she had stabbed him.

"Do you have something?" she asked, averting her eyes which nevertheless found their way back to the young man as if they were independent of her will. "A cowl, a cloak, or something?"

Kylo made no move to cover himself. In fact, he seemed amused at Rey's distress. The young scavenger didn't understand why the sight of her shirtless enemy brought up such… _awareness_ in her.

But the question she needed to ask had been haunting her thoughts since the ice moon. It burned away her unease and, when she looked back, it was to stare into his dark eyes. "Why did you hate your father? Give me an honest answer. You had a father who loved you, who gave a damn about you!"

She hadn't realized that she had begun to scream… nor that the tears of too many repressed nights of grief and anguish had suddenly burst out of her.

Kylo looked sad too. "I didn't hate him."

"Then why?"

"Why what?"

She hesitated. Even voicing it aloud seemed like too great a horror.

"Why what?" Kylo urged her. "Say it."

"Why… Why did you kill him? I don't understand."

"No, but you of all people should. Didn't your parents abandon you?"

"They didn't!" she said, her anger fighting her sadness.

"But you can't stop needed them. Looking for them everywhere and in everyone. In Han Solo… and now in Skywalker."

Kylo looked down briefly before repeating the last question he had asked her in their previous vision: "Did he tell you what happened?"

Rey grew stern, her confusion beat by certainty. "Yes!" she said defiantly.

Kylo smiled. "No, he didn't."

"He told me about the Republic's betrayal, about the death of his apprentices… and how he tried to find you but couldn't."

Kylo's smile faltered. "Is that what he told you?"

The sincerity of his expression was what obliterated Rey's certainty as surely as it had come to her.

"I don't doubt that's what he told you, but it isn't what happened. Oh, the Republic did betray us… and for that, they will pay. And he did try to find us."

He paused for an instant.

"But what he didn't tell you…" he continued, measuring his words and their rhythm as a trained storyteller would. "…is that he found me."

-0-

At the time, he had still been Ben Solo, hurt by the death of his friends. Ostracized and hunted by a galaxy his parents had created, and that they had brought him into. They had sent him to his uncle's Temple, even though he hadn't wanted to go. He had wanted to follow his father's footsteps, become a pilot. He had even started the application to join the Academy on Hosnian Prime… but his mother had insisted he go to the Temple. He had hated her and his father for it. But he had quickly found a home there. Friends he had been able to rely upon. And even his dream to fly; his uncle had taken him above the moon in various starships he had brought back to the Temple.

And then, the attack had come. Ben Solo had seen friends die before his eyes, fought his first true battle to escape as the few survivors struggled to escape the onslaught. And piloting a ship, not for fun or for training, but in a hostile situation.

Months passed after that terrible night as the survivors had struggled to survive, going from world to world, as far from the reach of the New Republic as possible. An early attempt to contact them had been met with disaster. Bounty hunters had tracked them, attempting to kill them. They had fled…

… and in their flight, Ben Solo had killed for the first time.

They had learnt to use the Force to defend themselves, even to attack. And, when things got particularly hard, to survive. They had become the beings who hunted them, turning from prey into predators. But always trying to remain true to some of the Jedi's teachings. Always hoping that someone would find them. But no one ever did. Ben Solo had started to hate his parents more than he ever had, blaming them for his troubles and their absence. And longing for them more than ever.

And holding on to the one gift his mother had given him before he left their home on Chandrila: a kyber crystal. One she herself had been given as a gift but which she had never used. When she gave it to him, she said that one day he would understand why she had and why the crystal was important.

It had been a constant companion of his as his training developed, as his sense of the Force allowed him to connect with the kyber more deeply than ever.

But following the destruction of the Temple, the kyber started… _speaking_ to him. Or rather, showing him visions. Visions he had come to despise. Visions of his family, of a reunion with the uncle who had abandoned his students, of his parents who had abandoned him to the Jedi. As the months passed, the visions had grown stronger until Ben Solo could no longer bare it.

Eventually, he had used the Force to compel it to silence, throwing his entire pain and rage at his situation against the visions provided by the crystal. The battle of wills had woken the other survivors, who had sensed a disturbance such as none they had ever experience before. The crystal had fought back, but so had Ben Solo. The lingering visions and disruptions the crystal had thrown at him would remain with him for days. The fight had been so intense that the kyber had cracked… and gone silent. And when Ben Solo pulled his hands away from it, it had become a bright crimson.

As though it had bled.

A few days later, Luke had found them.

-0-

"We needed to survive," Kylo said to a disbelieving Rey. "We did what we had to. And he hated it about us. He rejected us as students… and then he tried to kill me."

"No!" Rey said, refusing to believe him. This was another of his lies.

"He did. We fought, and he left me for dead. Not even checking to see whether I'd survived."

He paused.

"The Republic may have betrayed him… but he betrayed us. And he betrayed my parents when he lied about my death."

Rey wanted to stop him, to stop listening. It was all lies… But, no matter what he had done, Kylo had _never_ lied to her.

"Liar…" she said in a weak voice.

He moved closer to her.

"I learnt a valuable lesson that day. Let the past die. Kill it… if you have to. That's the only way to become what you were meant to be."

Sounds returned to Ahch-To as the vision ended and Kylo vanished, leaving a shaken Rey behind.

Had he told the truth? Or was it merely the truth as he had imagined it? Was this why Luke had chosen to hide? Not out of grief, but guilt?

She couldn't say. But she needed answers.

And there was only one place where she could find them.

-0-

It was later in the night and the storm was lashing at the island.

Rey sat in front of the fire in her hut with one of the Caretakers' blankets wrapped around her. She was soaked from her experience in the cave, her once tied hair hanging wet over her shoulders. More than that… she was miserable.

Her experience in the cave hadn't been what she wanted it to be. Although the darkness had remembered her and pulled her in as she tentatively went to it, the mirror hadn't shown her what she wanted. All it had shown her was… herself. Many times. As soon as she had touched the smooth surface of the mirror, she had known what they were, those mysterious doubles of her, continuing in a seemingly never-ending line to a far away point she knew existed. They had been the days she had spent on Jakku, the days she had marked on the wall of her home. And when she had finally reached the far away point where the long line of days ended, she had found another mirror… with nothing but herself reflected once again.

"I thought I'd find answers here," she said, apparently to no one. "I was wrong."

She didn't have enough strength in her to even cry. "I've never felt so alone."

"You're not alone."

She looked up to see Kylo sitting in front of her, the expression she had first spied in him when their bond had first revealed itself. The expression that belonged to Ben Solo. If anything, this allowed Rey to understand one thing Luke had told her: why it was possible to believe that anyone, even the worst monster in the galaxy, was never beyond saving.

"Neither are you," she said, meeting his eyes.

She didn't know what possessed her next, but she raised her hand… and extended it towards him.

He looked at her hand, uncertainly.

They had both wondered, since their bond had become clear, what would happen if they tried to simply touch.

-0-

"Rey!?"

Luke crashed into the village, drenched in rain as he sought the young scavenger. He had been looking for her for hours, desperate to tell her what they needed to do. Once that was done, they would need to leave Ahch-To and seek out Kylo Ren. They needed to end this once and for all.

As he came into the village, he saw through the rain and the wet strands of hair that hung over his forehead and eyes, that a light was glowing in Rey's hut.

He headed there instantly.

-0-

Kylo removed his glove and, hesitantly, moved his hand closer to Rey's.

He couldn't take his eyes off her outstretched hand… and she couldn't take her eyes off him. She could no longer see him as a monster: he was a victim. A victim of a fate he had never wanted. She was, in her way, seeing him for the very first time.

Kylo's hand drew closer, until his large fingers were level with her smaller ones. And then, slowly, almost reluctantly, he closed the gap between them.

Their fingers touched… and their common vision grew suddenly into something so much more, as their eyes met.

-0-

Luke pushed away the cowl covering the entrance to Rey's hut…

… to see the young scavenger touching hands with Kylo Ren.

Horror flooded over Luke as he realized what this meant. The Force was so strong in the little hut that it was enough to tell him that his nephew was not truly here. But he had been present all along, through his link to Rey. That was why the scavenger had started to be able to use her powers from the moment he had interrogated her on the ice moon. Since their minds had melded.

"STOP!" yelled the Jedi Master, extending his right hand at them.

The Force, once again his to call upon, reacted to his command. Rey went flying from her seat and slammed into the wall of the hut.

-0-

Light years away, Kylo felt the Force work and he was also thrown back into a wall. The shock passed, he tried to move… and found he couldn't.

-0-

"Skywalker?!" What are you doing?" Rey asked, as she vainly tried to move.

The Jedi Master walked towards her, sadness etched on his face and his hand still extended to maintain the Force hold on her. "I didn't see it before, but something about you should have let me know. It's possible to find some beings with an instinctive ability to use the Force. But the way you did it, the way you described it to me… spoke to use by a far more experienced mind. And when you told me about his probe through your mind…"

He paused.

"… I should have guessed."

"You can use the Force again?!" she asked, still trying to move. This reminded her too much of when Kylo had held her with the Force on Takodana.

He kept coming towards her. "You were right, Rey. I never should have left. I was wrong to think nothing would happen if I withdrew. But I needed to. I needed to learn the only power that those strong in the Force should ever have learnt. The only one the Jedi and Sith never would have taught. The one that will ensure that we will never be able to unleash horrors such as what you experienced on the galaxy."

"What are you talking about?" She still couldn't get free and she dreaded, for some inexplicable reason, what would happen when he reached her.

"Our power is dangerous," he said. "We can't be trusted with it. The Sith abused it for domination… and the Jedi succumbed to the _need_ to guide because of it. None of us can be trusted with this power."

He finally reached her, his gloved hand hovering above her face.

"Now, the Sith are gone… and I once told you that the Jedi needed to end. This is the only way they will."

He brought both his hands alongside her face, but still didn't touch her.

"I wanted to make you understand, to teach you how. But I no longer can. And when your Force goes into slumber…" his face hardened slightly. "… so will his."

He pressed his hands to the side of her face.

Rey didn't feel any pain as the Force within her begun to shrink, but a numbness started to fall over her… and the sensation of something being taken away soon became overwhelming.

-0-

Still trapped, Kylo also began to feel the effects of his Force powers shrinking.

Feeling a dread such as none he had ever felt before, he screamed in rage as he fought against the invisible bonds his uncle had cast over him and Rey.

-0-

Rey couldn't fight Luke off. She could feel her own will, small and vulnerable, against the might of the Jedi Master's. He was right about one thing; he was a trained and experienced Force-user, who had learnt decades ago how to use the Force. All she had was the few tricks she had learnt from him, the ones she had learnt on her own and her connection to Kylo's trained mind, from which she had unconsciously been drawing the knowledge of how to use the Force. That was how she had used it to free herself on the ice moon… and how she had been able to best him in combat.

But not even those tricks could save her from Luke Skywalker's overwhelming power.

But Rey was a survivor. She had not spent so long on Jakku, fighting every day against foes of all stripes to be defeated here today. Whether it had been the other scavengers, thieves, criminals, thugs, desert creatures or even the very elements of the desert planet, Rey had always prevailed. And she would now as well.

It was thinking of Jakku that brought the answer to her mind.

When you were confronted by a foe so much more powerful than yourself, you didn't fight it. Fighting it would be suicidal. Instead, you _ran_ from it. A flicker of hope sparked in Rey as the answer, so simple in its complexity, came to her.

Closing her eyes, she drew on the sensation that Luke had unlocked in her… and allowed the Force within to shrink even more.

The iron will faltered as he sensed the change… and Luke looked up to behold her face.

And then, Rey's Force exploded.

-0-

The bonds that had been holding Kylo vanished and he fell to the floor. Sweat trickled down his face as he looked around, panting. Something had closed the link between him and Rey and prevented Skywalker from blocking his powers.

But what?

-0-

Rey fell to the ground as Luke was thrown back and the hut exploded under the strength of her Force blast. Rain entered the once covered living area that Rey had made for herself, drowning the fire and sending plumes of smoke into the air.

Rising to her feet, a soaked Rey saw that Luke had already risen and was looking at her from across what seemed a massive distance. Whatever surprise he might have felt at her sudden attack had vanished from his face, replaced by the same determination he had worn when he had tried to block her Force. He raised his hand in her direction, summoning the Force to once again seize her.

But she knew it was coming this time.

He countered with her own Force push, the same as the one she had used to destructive effect on the ice moon, to send his attack back at him. It hit Luke and sent him flying, but he managed to turn it into a backflip that allowed him to land on his feet.

Rey seized her quarterstaff from where she had left it and ran to the face the Jedi Master. She needed to stop him.

Luke let her come to him, dodged her first attack and extended a hand to summon the first weapon he could find to his hand. A lightening rode that had stood on the roof of one of the huts came to him and blocked Rey's next attack.

She broke off the attack and launched a new spree, but the Jedi Master was more experienced and graceful than his age would let on. He ducked to avoid her first attack, pulled his torso and head back to let another pass before sidestepping the third. This left Rey's side open and he hit her with the rod. Then he pulled back, both hands on the rod, waiting for her next attack like a patient teacher. Rey unleashed a stream of attacks against him which he easily parried, giving ground as her staff whirled in the air, guided by her expert hands. But she wasn't winning this duel, she soon realized. Luke stopped retreating and, using a faint, he got her to overextend. He seized her staff and pulled it from her grasp.

Weapon less, Rey instinctively turned to the only option she had: the Force.

She sent a Force push at the Jedi Master and he only had a brief time to bring his arms up to block her attack. The push spared him but destroyed the stone steps behind them and even dislodged some stones from Luke's hut.

He answered in kind, but Rey had no time to stop him this time. She went flying and landed hard on her back. Fearing to sense the grip take hold of her again, she moved as quickly as she could and used the Force, not to attack Luke, but to summon the lightsaber to her. Once it reached her hand, she ignited the blade and jumped using the Force to reach Luke. The saber made short work of the lightening rod, but Luke's reflexes were still sharp enough to allow him to move out of her reach. She used the Force once again and threw him back, destroying more huts as the Jedi Master went flying and would have landed hard on the ravaged stairs, if he hadn't used the Force to stop his fall before he crashed. As Rey lowered the lightsaber, he allowed himself to fall to the ground where he remained.

The fight was over.

For a moment, neither spoke as they just remained standing or lying in the rain. And Rey saw in Luke's eyes the same expression that had haunted them when they had first met, and the one had had worn earlier that evening when he had told her about the destruction of his Temple: regret.

"I needed to stop him," he said.

Rey extinguished the lightsaber. "Tell me the truth," she said.

Luke lowered his eyes. "He must have told you already." He sounded almost dismissive.

"I heard what he had to say. Now, I want to hear your version."

He looked up at her, surprised to find her so understanding after what he had attempted to do. Rey was angry at him for what he had done, but she had recently learnt not to judge beings based on a single impression. If she could understand that Kylo Ren's actions came from a place of pain and stand to want to save him, she could do the same for Luke.

The Jedi Master lowered his eyes. He owed her at least an explanation.

"What did he tell you?"

"That you found him months after the destruction of the Temple… and that you tried to kill him."

Luke's rain-soaked face contracted in sadness, and Rey wasn't sure whether or not the downpour was covering up tears the Jedi Master might have been shedding.

"I saw… darkness."

-0-

Luke had left the ruins of his Temple behind him as he left Yavin 4, certain that some of his students had survived the destruction. Certain that his nephew was still alive. Certain that all that mattered right now was for him to return the boy to his mother's arms.

It took him months to find even the slightest clue to the survivors' whereabouts. His first lead had been a failed attempt they had made to try and contact the New Republic to ask for their assistance, a move which had ended in failure. One of the bounty hunters had been killed during their attempted capture.

The event had disturbed Luke and he had resolved to find them as quickly as he could. But he was unable to do so. It took him months, calling in favours from people he had met during the years that had followed the Rebellion. Even a few of his old war comrades had answered his call, despite the Republic's betrayal. He had also plied his Force senses for any clue that might lead him to them. But every clue he followed ended in failure that fuelled his despair.

Until a disturbance of such strength that he had felt the same sense of loss as Obi-Wan had when he had sensed the destruction of Alderaan reaching him.

And he had known where to go.

Days later, he had found his nephew. And the source of the disturbance.

Ben had bled a kyber crystal, the very kyber crystal that would have powered his lightsaber should he choose to build one when his training was completed. Luke had heard of such actions from Yoda, who had explained to him why the blade he had seen wielded by Vader had been red when all the others he had seen had never had that colour.

The sign of a darksider.

-0-

"I tried to reason with him, to call him home. It told him his parents were waiting for him. But he refused to listen. He called me another vision and railed against us for leading him and his friends to slaughter."

Luke paused as he remembered.

"I tried to reach him but he seemed too far gone. The effects of bleeding the crystal had taken their toll. And, when he failed to make me vanish, he attacked me with the Force. I had never seen such power before in him, such aggression. I used my lightsaber to counter what he had thrown at me… and he seemed to come out of his daze as I tried to reach him. And all he saw was his Master, with a lightsaber in hand, trying to reach him. He must have thought I was trying to kill him."

Rey couldn't take her eyes from the Jedi Master as the tale just came out of him.

"We fought. A brutal duel. And he fell off the side of the cliff into the sea. Such was the frenzy of the duel that I can't remember whether he missed a step and fell… or whether I attacked him, and he fell. And I remained, filled with shame… and consequence."

He looked down again. "I told his parents that I was unable to find him, and that Ben was most likely dead… and I left."

Finally, Rey had the full story.

"I created this monster," Luke said. "And now, he's lost to us."

And, finally, she understood him.

"I understand now," she said.

He looked up at her.

"I know what I need to do."

He read her intention in her face. "Don't do it."

"You promised me three lessons. But the answers were there in the second one. You may have radicalized him, but his choice is not yet made. If he turns, it could change the tide. This could be how we win."

"No. This is not going to go the way you think."

She knelt to be at eye level with him.

"I know that hiding from the Force is not the answer. You may think it's wisdom but it's not. It's just another form of fear. I lived my whole life in fear; fear of never finding where I came from, fear of hunger and death, fear of the very world I chose to live on. I refuse to live in fear anymore."

"It's not fear," Luke answered, placing his hand over hers. "It's the only answer I could find."

"I've found another. When we touched hands, I saw his future. If I go to him, he will turn. I'm sure of it."

"Rey," he sounded as if he was almost begging. "Don't do this."

She rose to her feet… and offered his father's lightsaber to him once again.

Luke looked at it. But chose to avert his eyes.

Rey lowered the blade, resignation on her face.

"Then, he is our last hope."

And she turned to leave.

-0-

The _Millennium Falcon_ flew at high speed past the peak where Luke stood, making for the atmosphere and space beyond.

Rey was gone.

He had failed, yet again.

But he wasn't sure what he had failed at. Part of him believed that he had failed because Rey hadn't understood the importance of his third lesson, of the need for the Force to stop being the cause of conflict in a divided galaxy. Another said that he had failed when he tried to _impose_ his lesson on an unwilling student. And a small part of him even said that his failure had come from misunderstanding the lesson entirely.

But it couldn't be, Luke thought.

Using the Force inevitably led to corruption. Even the best intentions never stood before the temptations of power. Only by teaching its users to forgo this power could such corruption, and the destruction they had wrought on the galaxy, be avoided. The Jedi had abandoned their covenant of exile for power. The Sith had sacrificed everything for power. And even he had failed to understand that the task he had been given, the legacy of being 'the Last Jedi' had been hubris.

He turned and headed back to his hut. It was time to end it.

Moments later, he was dressed in the full ceremonial robes the Caretakers had provided for him when he had arrived. Torch in hand, he made for the Jedi library. He would end it all.

As he walked up, a spectral form appeared behind him, watching his ascent. A whisper in the Force stopped Luke as he sensed the change that had occurred. And he turned to behold the ethereal blue Force ghost of a short being, with green skin, long pointed ears, a kind and wise smile, and a cane.

"Master Yoda."

"Young Skywalker." The old Jedi Master's voice was exactly as he remembered it.

Luke found his face splitting into a wide smile… which vanished when he remembered what had brought him to the library. "I'm ending it all, Master. The books, the Jedi. I'm going to end it all."

He turned and headed to the entrance of the library and raised the torch to set fire to the wood. But found he was incapable of doing it. The torch hovered in the air between him and the tree before slowly starting to lower it. Finally, he let it fall onto the stones, unable to bring himself to do what he had intended.

Behind him, Yoda sighed, closed his eyes, and raised a single finger.

In the clouds above them, lightening rippled suddenly and unexpectedly, and fell to hit the tree library. It instantly caught fire, to Luke's horror. And to Yoda's great amusement. The little green Jedi laughed heartily and stamped his feet as his former student looked at him as if he had gone mad.

"Ah, Skywalker. Missed you, have I."

Luke turned back to the library and attempted to run inside to save the books before they were destroyed by the flames. But an explosion of flames sent him flying back onto the wet grass. Lying on his back, Luke watched in sadness as the flames engulfed the entire tree. A deep sadness he had not expected to feel overcame him.

"So it is time," he said, as Yoda appeared in front of him. "Time for the Jedi Order to end."

"Time, it is," the diminutive form said before turning to him. "… for you to look past a pile of old books."

Old books!

"The sacred Jedi texts!"

"Oh, read them, have you. Hmm?"

"Well, I…"

"Page-turners, they were not. Yes, yes. Wisdom, they held. But that library contained nothing that the girl Rey does not already possess." He sighed. "Uhhh, Skywalker. Still looking to the horizon. Never… here! The need in front of your nose." He tapped Luke's head with his cane, which he hadn't expected to be tangible.

Luke looked up at the flames again as the doubts and regrets he had believed he had learnt to live with came out once again, expressing them to his Master as though he were a misbehaving apprentice. "I was weak, unwise…"

"Lost Ben Solo, you did," Yoda said, a kind note in his voice. "Lose Rey, we cannot."

"I can't be what she needs me to be."

"Headed my words not, did you?" Yoda asked, suddenly stern as he used to be on certain days. "Pass on what you have learnt. That means skill, mastery. But folly, weakness, failure also. Yes, failure most of all. The greatest teacher, failure is."

The ethereal form of the one who had once been the greatest of the Jedi came to sit beside his last apprentice.

"Luke. We are what they grow beyond. That is the true burden of all masters."

They sat looking at the flames of the uneti tree. Eventually, Luke spoke his greatest frustration, one he had long harboured against his old masters. "You needed me to defeat Sidious and Vader. You needed me to rebuild the Jedi Order. You expected too much of me."

Yoda looked at him, sad wisdom in his eyes and a kind smile on his face.

"No more than you could do, my apprentice."

Luke kept looking at the tree as the form of his Master disappeared, returning to the neverworld from where he had come. He thought on his words for a long time. And soon found himself rethinking all he had believed since shame had begun to lead his actions. Since he had succumbed to fear. Yes, Yoda and Obi-Wan had expected much of him. But no more than he had been capable of doing. He had expected himself to be able to rebuild the Jedi. But his attempt had failed. And he had tried to force his philosophy of fear onto the unsuspecting Rey. And failed to see the simple truth from the start.

He had been wrong.

Luke looked at the flames once again… and smiled.

At last, Luke _understood._

 **Author's Note:**

 **At last, I have finally finished a fanfiction I started. Small victories.**

 **The idea for this story came because, although I love Luke's arc in _The Last Jedi_ , I always felt that there was something missing from it. The trailer had hinted at a darker Luke and a confrontation between him and Rey. The one we got was good, but not what I had expected. I had always wanted to add something more to it and, for a time, I'd considered having Luke try to kill Rey to avoid history repeating itself. But as I turned that story over and over in my head, it never fit. Instead, the idea was there right from the start: Luke went to Ahch-To to seal himself off from the Force: that represented another way of stopping the abuses caused by Force-users.**

 **I hope I've sold that idea well.**

 **I might not write another fanfiction for sometime but I do have ideas and for those of you who had followed this story and my previous one (a particular shoutout to phnxgrl, who has reviewed every single chapter ^^.). The next one I would like to work on is about the character who was probably the most misused in _The Last Jedi_ and yet had great potential: General Hux. I've also had a story in mind about him for some time, and that maybe where I go next. But I also have plans for Leia and even a story about Luke and the mysterious Hedala, a name anyone familiar with the Ahsoka novel will recognize. I have plans to cross her with a fan favourite character from the old EU.**

 **Thanks again to all who followed this story. Thank you especially to those who have reviewed both here and in my other stories: it's what keeps me going in the moments of greatest doubt and frustration.**


End file.
